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Ryan Burgess
Welcome to a brand new episode of Front End happier. This is episode 45. And we are joined by a special guest Bianca Bortolussi, who is on a recruiting team at Netflix. She has joined us to help discuss ways to help your engineering profile stand out to recruiters and hiring managers. Bianca, can you give us a brief introduction of who you are, what you do and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages?

Bianca Bortolussi
Yes, I can. Hi, everyone. I'm Bianca Huerta Lucy I support UI Engineering here at Netflix as well as streaming client Technologies. I'm a recruiter for both organizations and help recruit software engineers who helped build Netflix for you. was the other question my happy hour? Yeah,

Ryan Burgess
what's your favorite Happy Hour beverage?

Bianca Bortolussi
Embarrassing like Coors Light.

Ryan Burgess
Nothing embarrassing about Thursday? We are drinking Coors Light today. Let's go around the table and give brief introductions of today's episodes. Panelists. Mark, do you want to start it off?

Mars Jullian
Sure. Hi, I'm Mark Julian. I'm a senior software engineer at Netflix. And I snuck through the recruiting pipeline.

Ryan Burgess
So Bianca wasn't on your panel.

Jem Young
I made you just great. Jem Young Senior Software Engineer at Netflix.

Ryan Anklam
I'm Ryan anklam, making my returned for and happy hour after a couple episodes off. For engineer at Netflix. A couple episodes. Just a couple, you know.

Ryan Burgess
And I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a software engineering manager at Netflix. And each episode of the fun and happy hour podcast. We like to choose a keyword that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink. What did we decide today's keyword is? Skills, skills. So if we say the word skills at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink. All right, well, let's get started and jump right in. When you're looking for an engineering candidate, what types of things are you looking

Ryan Anklam
for? I'm looking for a good smile.

Ryan Burgess
That's fair. I mean, you got to work with that person, if they're giving you gem gives Oh god, look, sir, what

Ryan Anklam
walked out of Jem's interview saying, Man, I want to have a beer with him. That was a mistake. No, here we are having beers.

Jem Young
Yes, we are at work by the way.

Bianca Bortolussi
So I would say that there's two types of things that we look for. And there's the on paper skills that we cheers shares that we look at whether that's qualifications for the role itself, looking at technologies, projects that somebody worked on, or just relevance to the role in general. And then there's the off paper, things that we look for in engineers like ability to work cross functionally, to communicate their ideas, well, to be able to push back and defend their opinion. And also really just to take ownership and complete things end to end. Those are all kind of on the soft skill side that we don't get on paper. But we look I look for at least in my initial conversations and and on site.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I think I also look for like excitement around a role too, because I think we can all be coding for whatever like it could be working for like bank software, it could be working for a small startup, it could be working for a big company, could be working for Netflix, helping people watch great shows. But it's like, are you passionate about the work that's being done? It could all be the same code base, but like, what are you trying to create? And I think I always want to see someone that's really interested in what they're working on as well. I think that's another thing I would add to that. What about you guys, when you're interviewing because you have to you get pulled into interviews all the time? What are some things that you look for in a candidate, maybe it's technical skills, but also some of the soft skills as well. She's not so many, so many years,

Jem Young
some of the Orion banker to write, like so when I want to work with someone that is passionate about what they do. If you spent past 10 years of your life writing code, you should be somewhat passionate about it or you're just doing it for the money you Yeah, you just like be excited then build explain things. Like what you said Bianca, like have opinions be able to defend them. But it's like a balance right? You want to have you want someone who's has opinions, but it's not opinionated as in well, no, you're wrong. Like argue your point. But if you're wrong, like if so like, okay, has empathy. Yeah, has empathy. Perfect. And that's the right that's hard to see on paper. And that's you can only get me to talk to somebody. I wonder

Mars Jullian
also like if you could maybe enhance or just expand that answer a bit. Like if it depends on the seniority of the role that you're looking for. I was having this conversation with someone the other day about sort of like where soft skills become a really important really important part of the job and I think they become more and more recognized as you become more and more senior. And does that. Is that something that plays into how you look at different candidates coming through the pipeline? Depending on what position they're applying for?

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think it definitely comes into play, depending on the nature of the role. So some roles are more cross functional in nature, people are going to you guys, for example, all work with product and design, some of you work with partner engagement managers, marketing, for example. And then other roles are a little bit more siloed into the work that they're doing, maybe they're working on internal tools are on a project that doesn't need a lot of cross functional interaction. And so I wouldn't say that necessarily years of experience equals someone having the ability to be able to have that cross functional communication and professional maturity in their communication. But oftentimes, it it does look like that. Just because people with more more experience have kind of that Been there, done that attitude, and they can walk into a room and really assess from that angle of I have experienced here. I know how to kind of command the room, versus when you're still early on in your career, you're still navigating that and trying to figure out not just your voice, but also how do you have these tough conversations? And what are the solutions that you should be coming up with? Does that answer that? Yeah, no, it does.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, it does. Yeah. And I think even to your point, too, is like if you're working on internal tools, you saw stakeholders and people that you do I totally Oh, so I think there is, at any point in time, there is a bit of soft skills, cheers. Another one for me, too, that I think is really important that I always look for is questions for me, or questions like, it doesn't matter. At any point, even sometimes I'm on. Like, I'll interview designers or other engineers. I want questions about anything like whether it's like, what do I do? How do they work with me? What's the goals of our business? Anything that definitely just showing interest in and kind of exploring and asking questions is really, really useful. I've had interviews where they're like, Oh, no questions, and I kind of actually questioned that. It's like, really, you have nothing you're not interested in knowing more about anything. You're not concerned about? Anything? It's like that that always a bit of red flag for me.

Bianca Bortolussi
That's a really good point. The one caveat that I would add is just thoughtful questions. True. So I think we've all been there and candidates ask you and have asked everyone in the panel the same question you're like, Hmm, okay, I can answer this question. I can't think of one top of mind. But I know I've been in those situations. So I wouldn't necessarily say that every question is a good question. But there are, the majority of questions are good questions. And curiosity goes a heck of a long way. For most people, especially Netflix, and I'm, I'm assuming really industry wide, you showing curiosity about the role, the impact? What if people even like their jobs, and all of that is a good good indicator that you're taking it really seriously. Otherwise, it kind of seems like you're just going through the motions, and you feel like you kind of deserve the role.

Ryan Anklam
So really like it when candidates asked me follow up questions. So they asked me a question, I'll answer it, and then they'll kind of elaborate on my question or my answer and ask me more questions based on that,

Ryan Burgess
like, from a technical question, or just

Ryan Anklam
a lot of people ask about the culture here. You know, what technologies are working with? And they don't just stop right there. They kind of dig a little deeper now is really like that.

Ryan Burgess
Are you using React? You're like, yes. Okay. Yeah. It's like, how are you using it? Are you using Redux? Or like, I get your point? Digging in further shows more interest? I guess, to a bad example of a question. There's one time and it wasn't at Netflix that I was asked this, and I think it would be more applicable. If it was at Netflix. I did get asked one question, when I asked that in an interview is, hey, any questions for me? Is that another company? Someone was like, What's your favorite movie? And I felt like what what are you getting out of that question? So I think there are some bad questions to your point, Bianca, that people could have a bad, bad question.

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah. I mean, it's far and few between, but thoughtfulness and the question that you ask, goes really far, far ways for most people. A definitely does for me, especially when I'm stumped. And like, Thank you for stopping me

Mars Jullian
topic of questions to sort of, I find that it's really refreshing also to have candidates who will ask you questions, like during the technical part, as well. And even if it's supposed to, like not meant to, but it exposes a vulnerability, at least or a vulnerability that they feel in their technical knowledge. And I think that's always been really interesting, because it's someone who's not afraid to show perhaps the things they don't know in order to get to the best solution. And so a bit of humility or you know, the ability to just kind of be able to be vulnerable in front of coworkers or colleagues, which can happen a lot or you need to be able to do that sometimes in a professional setting. Yeah,

Ryan Burgess
I think That's actually really good as you're given these problems like a whiteboarding problem, and it's not necessarily presented to you in full context, you have to ask follow up questions and how to best approach it. And I think those questions are really important because it also shows how do you work together as engineers? Like I think of that whiteboarding question those technical questions. They're not just about stumping someone, it's really about how do we work together on a problem problems? Yeah, how you problem solve, how do you work together? Like when we're interviewing someone, we're not sitting there just watching them code. It's like, how did how do they engage me in this as well?

Bianca Bortolussi
It's one of the bigger things that I see. And when we have debriefs, when the engineers come in, they say, oh, this person jumped right to cut right to solution without asking any questions. It's by far the most common trend that I see candidates make a mistake on in whiteboarding or any sort of the technical exercises is not asking follow up questions.

Ryan Anklam
It's a great, I think, great note for anybody out there is when we do whiteboarding exercises, very rarely is it actually about the code? A lot of times, it's about your thought process and how you approach the problem, how you talk about the problem. So I think whiteboarding gets a very bad rep. But I don't think it has to, I think is there's actually a lot of value to it.

Jem Young
In our defense, though, we specifically do not ask trick questions, like, we're not trying to stump you and see like, how out of the box and you think it's like a simple problem. And it's exactly right, like how you solve problems. Other companies, I think, do ask trick questions, though, that are like, yeah, how clever are you standing in front of a board? And that's, that's not the way we do things,

Bianca Bortolussi
or CS fundamentals that you haven't touched? Since your freshman year?

Jem Young
Yeah, we always say that everybody walks in the room. I'm like, Look, these are going to be questions that are relevant to your experience and relevant what you're going to do. I'm not trying to trick you. And like it's a conversation. So just like talking out. That's it.

Ryan Burgess
I like that approach, too. Because yeah, that we're trying to solve a problem that you would have in a day to day job. It's not, hey, CS, fundamentals that you have to go do that. You're like, oh, wait, I'm not doing this daily, or I can at least look that up on the Google search and probably

Bianca Bortolussi
never going to do this. Yeah.

Ryan Burgess
Exactly. I'd be interested to is how important is a resume nowadays. So

Bianca Bortolussi
in my opinion, I think it's pretty important. And I think it's important in the way that you display the information about your skill set. And the reason why I say that is it's you know, we look at resumes for about 30 seconds, and then we decide to pass her or movie forward. And and other companies you're fighting with a computer generated system that just kind of spits it through, the computer decides who moves forward. And who doesn't end up flux, we look at those resumes. And so for me, it's, it's pretty important. But the more important thing is really, someone being able to articulate what they did very concisely. And in a way that's easy to read. So I get a lot of resumes that are three plus pages long, have a ton of buzzwords on them. If you have listed 15 programming languages. I don't believe that you're proficient in all 15. And so it makes it really hard for us to determine like, who's good at what and what did you actually do. And so, when you're thinking about a resume and writing one, my biggest suggestion is cut it down, less is more for sure. Because we don't spend more than 30 seconds to a minute looking at it. And we don't read the whole thing either. Unfortunately, we just don't have time. So writing all of the key things that you've done, the projects that you've worked on what you've owned, that's probably the most important thing, and then also not muddying it up with extra technologies. Because if you say you're proficient in Java, we test you in Java, and you're not, it's not a good luck, for sure.

Ryan Burgess
I know, I've even left things like Java off my resume or like dotnet things that I've totally done at some point in time, not something I want to do. So I actually leave it off my resume, because I do not want that bot picking it up and saying, Oh, he has that skill set. Cheers.

Ryan Anklam
I've done the exact same thing with Java. I've just taken it off my resume. I've written a lot of Java, I can do Java, but I do not want to do Java.

Jem Young
Alright, question for the room and you see a objective statement or whatever, you know, they put a top resume is that important or not?

Bianca Bortolussi
I usually don't read it unless it's like specifically tailored to Netflix. But typically, it's not like I'm looking for a senior software engineering position. I'm like, Okay, well, we only have so great, but yeah, I would say leave it off. It's extra space. Most people probably don't read it.

Ryan Burgess
I didn't even know what that was.

Jem Young
I've seen it and like I don't do it but I've seen other people do. It's I think it's like where you went to school with a resume.

Bianca Bortolussi
Totally usually like a statement saying like what you want to do next. Like my objective objective of applying to this role is XYZ pretty much is what it is.

Ryan Burgess
Okay, fair enough. I thought applying to that job made sense. But yeah,

Bianca Bortolussi
yeah, it is kind of an interesting thing. I I think it's one of those like older techniques with resumes, there's like a lot of some companies even say should still submit a cover letter, like, I would say, not Netflix for sure. But I wish we had another recruiter for another company in the room. Because if it was different there, then that would be helpful. But from what I've seen, like, less is more, and being very concise in what you've done, is more helpful than wanting more.

Mars Jullian
When you say less is more like when working on resumes. I've always struggled like do I cut out experience that I've had? Like, do I go for listing all of the different experience I've had? Or do I just try to be really concise in each one? So that every job position that I've had that's relevant to the position that I'm applying for? Is there? Or do you think that it's better to just maybe have the stuff that's more relevant now, or perhaps just most recent?

Bianca Bortolussi
So I would say that you should include all of your experience unless it's like an internship, just because I will, I personally would notice, like if there was a gap, so if you graduated college, and then all of a sudden it was like, and five years later, she started working as software engineer, then I would be like, what did she do for those five years was she like working at Starbucks, she don't want to put it on a resume. So at least list it and maybe like one or two bullet points, and then expound upon the more relevant positions that you would be applying for.

Ryan Burgess
So you wouldn't put an internship on that his experience, too, is like someone might be applying to a job that that is their experience. So you would want

Bianca Bortolussi
to really okay, yeah, sorry, I'm sorry, for Netflix. Specifically, I wouldn't include it for any other company, especially if you are coming out of college, or you're pretty new out of college, then I would include those things.

Jem Young
So one of the most common questions we get all the time on Twitter, like when we have the college show, was, I'm brand new, I just graduated college or just finished a boot camp. Yeah, what do I put on my resume to get your attention?

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, my first suggestion would be network network network, before you even write a resume is find every connection that you can to your university out in the field, and talk to everyone that you can within your kind of circle that can kind of introduce you to people, because that actually will help you more than a resume will ever. And so that's my first like, my primary suggestion would be to network. But in terms of your resume, I would hope and expect that a lot of people have worked, especially in the boot camps have worked on really interesting projects. So that's what I would write about the projects that you've worked on. If you're in school, currently, some of the research that you've done. I mean, most colleges have you worked on kind of interesting projects while you're in school. So writing about that, and what you've studied, that can be really helpful and insightful. Some companies I know, look at like the classes that you took at certain colleges, so including those courses could be helpful depending on the role. And and also potentially Professor recommendation, if you're still in school, if you've worked on a project that's really relevant to what you're applying to, then definitely write about it. Whether it's been at scale or in production or not, you obviously have some general knowledge around what people are working on. We've talked

Ryan Burgess
about a resume, but how important is having a LinkedIn profile? We don't have any of our panelists from LinkedIn here today. So

Jem Young
really doesn't matter actually.

Ryan Burgess
Sorry, Derek, and Brian, you're not here.

Bianca Bortolussi
So it depends. And it depends on the level of reach outs that you want. And I think LinkedIn has really shifted from even maybe five years ago, and get previously was kind of this really cool network. Not that it's not cool anymore. I'm not saying this is really cool network where people would put their resume to connect with people, no one really knew where it was heading kind of a thing. And then recruiters took a hold of it. And I'm sure everyone in this room gets at least one to two reach outs a week, I hope you don't even check it. Because that's what it's primarily used for now is is reaching out for new opportunities. So I don't think it's critical to apply into job. I think recruiters have gotten really dependent on it. And the user interface is really easy to read. So it's kind of like an easy way to go back and check and read things really easily. But there's plenty of people who have been absolutely stellar candidates who didn't have a LinkedIn profile who we've made offers to who we've hired, and I almost appreciate them more because that means that they went out of their way to like handpick the places that they wanted to go. Rather than having this like platter serve to them of all the jobs that they could have. So it depends on your own objective for your career, I guess is what I

Ryan Burgess
actually feel it's like a must. I'm like, interested to hear your thoughts on especially as a recruiter saying, like, you don't need it. I like it. It's well presented resume and it's like I go to that Read that even before a resume, if I have the choice, it's, it's easier for me to grasp and look at that I totally, even if I'm going to talk to someone on the phone, or I'm going to talk to them right before an interview, it's a good, quick way for me to just double check and go, Oh, yeah, this is who I'm talking to. They've worked at these companies. These are some of the bulleted highlights that they want to share. So I think it is very valuable. I can see your point, though, too, is it's definitely gets a lot of recruiting reach outs from it, though, too.

Bianca Bortolussi
I mean, I totally think it's valuable. From my perspective, I hope that everyone listening to this podcast has a LinkedIn profile, so I can find you. Just kidding, I'm not kidding, though. But at the same time, I think it just depends. For me, like, I, if someone only has a resume, I would just look at that for the same purpose. And I, of course, prefer LinkedIn, because again, it is easier to look at than, like text really small on a page. But I would suggest that everyone has one, just so that Netflix can at least reach out to you one time.

Ryan Burgess
What about like GitHub Pages, and even portfolio websites? portfolio websites used to be a huge thing. I feel like I don't see them as much anymore. Is that a must? Do you like, even as engineers? Do you feel like you have to put together a portfolio website or have a GitHub like, is that a score against you? If you're interviewing someone, they didn't have GitHub? They didn't have a portfolio site with any of their work? How does that weigh in your factor?

Jem Young
I'm gonna say no, because I haven't updated my website. I think the beginning it was important, maybe if you have no experience, yeah, it's probably much more important to be like, here's what I built, here's what it looks like, here's a link to the code. Whereas now, like, I've been in a few companies, and I've experienced and like I kind of don't need anymore, you can just ask me, and I'll tell you, but

Ryan Burgess
to your point, I would agree that it's for someone coming right out of school, or a boot camp, show off your work, like really take those projects, and like, Hey, I built this, or this is a side project that I've built, it really can help speak to like your skill set and actually being able to do something. Whereas like, you can't lean on Oh, I worked at XY and Z company. It's like, I'm right on the school. But I've built this project, or I've, you know, built the small feature, you can actually show off your work better. And I think that's where the website or portfolio site comes into play.

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, I agree, especially for people with luck, less experience, GitHub is a great way to showcase your skills to companies, because they will go through that, look through your code to yourself. As far as what personal website goes, be careful with it, especially if you haven't updated it in a while. And it's like, you know, from early 2000s, because that could almost hurt you, you know, with just I'm just saying like, if I look at that, and it's like dot h tml.

Jem Young
Check my websites.

Bianca Bortolussi
Include it like, I wouldn't like go out and search for your website. But if you include it as a part of your application, then I'm like, okay, this person is proud of this. What does this mean? You know, and so just be conscientious of that, for sure. And like if I searched your website, and I was like, Okay out of date, then that's on me not on you, because you didn't send that to me. But if you've sent it to me, then it's on you. So make sure that it's up to date, if you're using it as a way to market yourself.

Mars Jullian
One thing I've seen when I was applying, or that I saw a lot of when I was applying to Netflix, and one of the things I emulated in my personal website was to have it act as like a hub for link out to other things that were easier to update. So like GitHub, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever things that were easy that were safe to share with a professional as well as a personal network. And then the page itself acts as like, here's my bio, here are the things I'm passionate about really short, really succinct, then from there, you can go out to other places. And I think that that I really liked in other people's personal websites, and I think it's been working well for me at least Yeah,

Bianca Bortolussi
I Yeah, that's great.

Ryan Burgess
I don't The echo is like don't link to something that you don't want someone right like if it's yeah, if your Twitter accounts not something you want the recruiter right, of course, yeah. Then make sure your

Jem Young
privacy settings are set. I'll say this and I've seen it more than once surprisingly, people's personal website, the link to their portfolio website, whatever, which has a link to their blog, their blogs, not technical, it's kind of their own personal opinions. Unfortunately, like, I'm going to read those because I want to know who you are. And sometimes like you can get into trouble because they just say some just outrageous things that you wouldn't say an interview, but I'm still gonna see it because it's linked to your website. I would probably separate those if at all possible.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, you're worried about those. You can separate

Jem Young
them. Yeah, I've seen some things, man. See, there you go.

Ryan Burgess
I guess that leads me into my next point of like, how honest should someone be in an interview? Or for phone screen like in person or on the phone? How honest shouldn't a candidate be absolutely onions on us for sure. Alright, let's hear him,

Bianca Bortolussi
I think that you should be honest for sure be, you know, upfront and direct, however, be mature about it as well. If you bad mouth your company in a way that is not mature, that is throwing your company under the bus that's throwing your boss under the bus, then it's very likely that that's just a bad luck on you. So if you're not happy where you are, think about a very appropriate way to tell someone that you are looking for something else. Because, you know, we look at that as Hmm, this is how they talk about their current role, their current manager, the current team, like what if they come here, and that's the same kind of dissenting opinion that they bring with them. And so it definitely factors against you. However, I think honesty and vulnerability on that flip side has been one of the best areas that I've seen in candidates in terms of their fit the people who are really honest about their shortcomings, in ways that they're humble that they've learned from them. Those are my favorite conversations, because that doesn't happen very often it often. So those are those are my two pieces of advice, be professional and mature in your dissenting opinions, and be vulnerable in the areas that you know that you still have gaps, or that you're not proud of. Be humble.

Ryan Burgess
That was really well said. Yeah, I've I've had interviews where I've had someone bad mouthing their company or speaking negative have their boss or someone like on their team and is very off putting because you're right, you look at that, and you're like, Oh, well, how are you going to act? If you're coming here? I get there's some negative things that happen. I've definitely had bosses that I did not like, and they did not treat me well. And I get that. But I think it's all in how you approach that and sell it to the next company. You can do it properly.

Jem Young
I say I agree with everything you said. But I say like mostly honest. So when you're looking for a job, you go through like the you know, the circus of talking to five, six recruiters in sometimes it's a company that I'm not necessarily thrilled about. So you kind of have to fake it a little bit. Because you just don't know. And it's their job to company. Yeah. But if I'm like, yeah, look at your company. And it's like, I don't know, financial tech, which is not exciting to me at all. Like, isn't it their job to sell to me? Or should I just be like, Yeah, I'm kind of on the fence. But as a recruiter, are you like, Oh, they're turned off? Because they don't want to do it? Or like, how does that I

Bianca Bortolussi
think I would be more turned off. If someone told me like, what you're doing doesn't sound hard, or complex, or I don't really like the job itself doesn't sound interest? Well, if they say the job itself doesn't sound interesting. Maybe there's another role that would sound better. When people tell me like, Hey, I'm kind of on the fence, like, I take that as a challenge. And I'm like, okay, and now I'm going to sell you and figure out like all the ways that I can get you to be excited. So and I just would say like, if you are interviewing at a company that you're not excited about, like, why are you interviewing there? Like don't use it as a backup for yourself. But be at least like, a little bit interested in it? And then yeah, the T it's part of the team's role to sell you. But it's also, you know, part of your role to sell yourself as well. So it's given take for sure. But I think you can kind of tell them like, I'm not sure about this, maybe I'm not sure about it. I haven't really thought about this for my next step in my career.

Jem Young
Well, that's a good one.

Bianca Bortolussi
Don't write that down.

Ryan Burgess
What about how honest should someone be? I feel like this is a question that comes up often, mainly with recruiting, but you're asked about salary expectations and what you currently make in your current role? How honest should you be to the recruiting team? I've heard varying opinions on

Mars Jullian
what stage two because you know, your level of honesty could change depending on where you are with a company that's

Ryan Burgess
turning? Yeah, like, because it's first initial conversation.

Mars Jullian
That's kind of off putting, yeah,

Bianca Bortolussi
it could be can be, it totally could be depending on the company. And if they could meet that expectation, you could just end the conversation there. If you come in way too high for something that they can meet. Tell me if I asked you your comp, tell the recruiters at Netflix because we actually use it as data. But at other companies, I would never ever suggest to tell a recruiter your current comp until you get closer to a close. Because what they do is that they use it as a negotiation tool in order to get you at the least amount of money possible. So they take your current comp, they bring it back to their comp board or whatever. And they use it as negotiation to make sure that they can still bring you in at a number that you're like kind of excited about, but it's not going to be maybe the very top of market. I actually recently saw this with a candidate who made an offer to who had another offer competing offer who they just barely went over his comp. And we brought him in, of course at top of market. And so, you know, once they heard that they bumped it significantly, like 50 50%. So what I would say is, you know, don't tell recruiters your comment, if it's not Netflix, because we're a little bit more transparent, honest about it, until towards the end, because that's one of those things that they use kind of against you, unfortunately. But I would be really honest about where you expect to come in. Once you get a little bit farther along, like maybe not the initial conversation, but you could have that conversation around like, Hey, I don't know if it makes sense for us to continue having this conversation because this is what I'm looking for. And if it's a startup or whatever it might be. And you can just have a very honest conversation there about like, does it make sense for us to continue? Like, here's what I'm thinking in terms of what, what compensation would excite me, and don't give them like, a hard stop number, but like more of a range? And maybe they can meet it? And then it's like, okay, I should continue to not waste my time. Or they say like, there's no way then.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I think sometimes there is that early conversation could be helpful in the sense that it's hard for someone to take a pay decrease, like, that's always hard, especially if you have family or you're paying a mortgage, or whatever it is, like we all have different things in life, you have that expected salary expectation that you've had for, you know, IRS or the past year, and moving somewhere that they're like, Oh, it's 50% of that. It's like, well, that might not cut it for you in life. So I think sometimes you could have that conversation upfront, or at least be honest, what you expect to follow up on the data point for Netflix. Bianca, can you explain like what that means? You said, it's a little bit different if someone sharing their salary for you for Netflix, and you use that as a data point, what does that mean? Yeah,

Bianca Bortolussi
that's a good point. So Netflix pays top of market, and we pay top of personal market. So that does look a little bit different than just like generic top of market. So we look at everyone's skill set within the company. And we collect data from every person that we talked to, in order to really understand where the market falls today. And so we want to make sure that our engineers are not leaving because they could make more more money elsewhere. But that they're staying because they love their job, they know that they're compensated, well, they trust us, etc. And so what we do with that data, when we ask you for your compensation is we put it in a very large dataset. And we look at it in terms of the market. And so for some people, they're already at top of market. And those are the most helpful data points for our current engineers, and they help us really determine where compensation is, is falling in the market place and help us adjust our engineers accordingly. And then for others, and they aren't at top of market. And so what that helps us do is really understand the full range of the market. But what it doesn't do is it doesn't determine what your salary will be at Netflix. So if you're at top of market already, we're going to consider that, of course. But if you're not at top of market, we're not going to just give you like the blanket 10% above what you're currently at, we're gonna pay you top of market for some people that looks like doubling their salary. For some people, it doesn't of course of depending on where they're at. But it's one of those unique things about Netflix that we have the opportunity to, instead of bringing you in at the lowest possible point that you're excited about bringing you at the highest possible point. So we always put our best foot forward first,

Jem Young
I can agree. I mean, now that we're gonna flicks I can say that's absolutely true. Ryan, you could have lowball me, like much, much lower. And I would have been like, this is more than I'm making. Yeah, but you didn't. And like I appreciate it that too, like it was honest. And

Ryan Burgess
we asked you set what you're getting paid unlike what you expected. And I do remember that conversation. And even what you expected was a lot it was more than what you're making current. Before coming to Netflix, we didn't just meet that or go like 5% above that we look at as a top of market when asking questions of people that you're interviewing, what are some signs of unhealthy company culture, or things that you should be looking for in a company that you're interviewing with?

Jem Young
I'm going to say high turnover at the sea levels. If you just like one through two VPs in the past year, like that's telling me something about your company right there or general like age have I always asked this if I'm interviewing with another engineer, I'll be like, how long have you been at the company? Why are you still here? And if you've been here six months and everybody your team's been here six months, your company is like 10 years old. Like that tells me something about your team that people don't stick around after a certain amount of time.

Ryan Anklam
I'll tell you one thing that I hear and immediately will end any conversation as if I hear someone tell me that they work hard and they play hard.

Ryan Burgess
Alright, that's a Yeah, that's a red flag about the door. Like think of even your one experience interviewing with a company where think you went in late at night. And there people still there at one

Ryan Anklam
o'clock and everyone was still there. Yeah, notice

Bianca Bortolussi
that leave at 6pm. Right? Like, haha, yeah,

Ryan Anklam
I was heading out to vacation the next day or something I think they

Ryan Burgess
were being Yeah, they were being flexible,

Bianca Bortolussi
flexible I would say like, Oh, why are they interviewing? We had 60

Ryan Anklam
I think I requested that time. Okay.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah. But the fact that the whole entire team and yeah, yeah, there's

Ryan Anklam
10 people huddled around the coffee machine.

Jem Young
Hmm. Oh, wait, I have more. I've got more. That's a good one. This thing late. It's like, oh, we offer free dinner. If you're here past seven o'clock. That's a red flag right there. Like, why would anybody be here past seven o'clock and an average workday? But you

Ryan Burgess
have to stay there

Bianca Bortolussi
enough that they would that they would make dinner like dinner,

Ryan Burgess
right? Like, I've definitely been at companies where there's been some crunch time or we're shipping something and they've totally offered to pick up dinner, which they should. But it's not like this thing. That's always a daily thing. There are companies yes, definitely in the Bay Area that offer that and you have to be there. So it's not even seven o'clock there. Yeah. There's even been ones I know of one company, it's eight o'clock, which to me is like, what, that's way too late. I'd be starving by that point. I'd be sleeping by that. There you go. And so you have to be working till that point. I think if a company offers dinner as like, you can take home dinner. That's awesome. Because that is a good perk that you just don't have to think about dealing with dinner and everything. If you look at it as a positive that way is that I've worked hard all day. I don't want to have to think about what I'm making for dinner. That is cool. But yeah, making me work longer hours to get that free dinner. That's not free dinner.

Jem Young
That's not free. Yeah. Oh, wait, another one. I have so many of these. Love if I asked you. If I say like, what time is everybody in the office and you're giving me like a fixed schedule. It's like everybody's in the office by 930. Unknown leaving time, but like if you just say like everybody's in office at certain time, that tells me something about your philosophy on engineering and like butts in seats versus actual productivity versus say, like, oh, I can come and go as I please, within reason. And like, Don't miss your chance. But yeah, you're saying like, now you're gonna be the opposite of this time. That just means you want the CEO to look out and be like, everybody's here. But that's not the same as being productive, which tells me a lot about your culture. Yeah,

Ryan Burgess
I hate the acid seat model, like so much. When people are staying there just because their manager or C suite person is there for dinner?

Jem Young
On pre rolls back into the Yeah, why? Why are you bribed me to stay longer?

Ryan Burgess
Well, that's the thing is those people? Are they continuing to work to get that eight o'clock dinner? Now? They're probably just hanging out. They're not working that hard. So why make them do? Yeah, it's, it's terrible.

Mars Jullian
One of the things I've asked the recruiters, or at least in my most recent job search that kind of like put me off a certain company culture does when you ask about feedback, and sort of the inter, like, the interoffice relationships, and like, oh, yeah, we only do our feedback cycles every six months to a year. And it just kind of like, I've heard that before. And it's kind of put me off, and that no one is open to talking about issues, except for those every six month, two year periods, and then seems like something like that could build a very toxic relationship, or, or at least in the office, and when you ask them about how people approach other engineers or their managers about feedback, everyone's like, yes, if you have a problem with a colleague, you go to your manager, they might go to their manager, and then they'll deal with it. And I think that can kind of build a somewhat toxic work environment. Absolutely.

Bianca Bortolussi
I have a couple of some of the ones that I get asked commonly are what are the reporting structure. So for us super flat, it's a manager, director, VP, but at other companies, it's a manager, another manager to directors and like, six removed from the VP and then top 25, removed from the CEO kind of thing. And what that tells me about those companies is just your limited scope, and your your impact that you're going to make. It's probably your manager, your managers, manager, your directors, directors director, who's making those decisions that you're going to be implementing. Additionally, another question that I would ask is, how big is the team? And so if your find out that you're going to be on a team of 50, like, okay, that's huge. What are you doing? Like, what what impact are you going to make on that team? I think that will tell a lot about the company culture and how they value either the role that you're stepping into team that you're stepping into, etc. And another question that I would ask any like recruiter or manager is just like the information shared down like how much do they actually know about where the company is heading? When you talk to bigger companies, it might be harder for them to get that information startups probably get that information passed down to them really easily. But that'll tell you as well, how much information you're gonna have about the company where it's heading. And kind of the the foreseeable future outside of just this. If you're working, if it's a really big team really small piece of code, you might not really know where the company is heading and not you could potentially lose passion for what you're doing pretty quickly, I would assume.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, even like your question about asking the team size. If you're talking to the manager, how many direct reports do they have? Because if it was 50, that probably means you're not going to have as much of attention as you should have. And I think that could really impact your job for sure.

Jem Young
Quasi related, what is everybody's thoughts on the social interview? Explain the social interview social interviews, like, you know, you go through one round two, round, whatever, however, many rounds at the end, sometimes you go out like you meet the team and like, have a drink with them. I think that's not that uncommon. I know, some people were like, it's great. I get to know everybody and see if like, are they douchebags or not? Other times, it's just like, I hate that I'm not good in social settings. What's everybody's thought?

Ryan Burgess
I don't think it should necessarily be a requirement. But I think there could be some value, maybe not for drinks, too. But maybe it's just grabbing lunch with the team. It's a nice, easy way to ask them questions about the role, too. It doesn't necessarily be like, Oh, do I want to hang out with these people. But you it's a little more informal way of asking some questions and just getting to understand their day to day, I can see some negatives to it as well.

Bianca Bortolussi
I like it. I always suggest it. And the reason why I have a couple of reasons. Because normally people choose a job because of the people that they're working with and the job that they're going for. So if you met your team, and you realize like, there's I would be really passionate about this job, but there's no way that I could work with these people, you're probably not going to choose that job. I hear time and time and time again, from candidates, like I loved the team. Like that's one of the first things that people bring up to me when I'm closing them is like, I can see myself fitting into this team. And that's often the biggest selling point for them. And so we treat it a little bit less of an it's not an interview at all, we try not to make it feel like an interview and more so an opportunity for candidates to really get to know the people who they'd be working with, to hope that other companies do the same thing. But it's a great opportunity for you to take that. Take that by the horns, I guess and really understand the people that you'll be working with ask good questions. It's off often a lot more casual. So people are a lot more honest as well. So sometimes you can get some of the answers that you really want out of them. And that aren't like PC and very polished or trained. So I think it's really important. And it's usually like one of the one of the reasons that people decide to come is because they met the team. They love them.

Ryan Burgess
When I'm interviewing somewhere, it's like, do I want to work with these people? Do they seem like a great team? Actually, no, when I joined Netflix, I had met a lot of people on our team before I ever even talked about interviewed like Ryan and I met at a conference that was a big introductory to like me actually joining Netflix's like I knew the team or like knew some of the engineers I'd be working with. And that was huge. That really helped me understand it wasn't interviewing at the time, like you and I had known each other for a couple years before I ever came here. But it definitely helps

Jem Young
Oh, another red flag. I got so many, the recruiter a they don't have defined steps about like, here's what's gonna happen next. If it's just kind of like ambiguous. Yeah, we might give you a call at some point, like, my time is valuable. Your time is valuable, like, don't do that. Second, if they don't respond when they say they do, like they respond two weeks later than that, to me is like a reflection of the internal culture of just well then on top of the game, someone messaged me like a few months ago, and they said, Hey, I interviewed and like or something happened and like they didn't talk to recruiter, I was like, Oh, I followed up on that really quickly. Because I was like, that's not the way we do things. And like I know, for a fact, that's not the way we do things. But I know lots of people, it's like six months later, the recruiter gets back to them or something like that. That's just, that's a red flag right there. Like

Ryan Burgess
you're not treated like priority. And that that does feel really shitty.

Bianca Bortolussi
Well, also, what that tells me is that that company is super slow. Like, if that's how long they're they're taking to like make a decision or whatever it might be, like, you can guarantee that that's how long they're gonna make engineering decisions, as well. Hmm.

Jem Young
That's interesting. Here is a certain large tech company. It's really well done months and months and like

Ryan Burgess
I remember I've talked to their pride themselves on that. Yeah, they're like, they're like taking forever.

Jem Young
Three months, we'll get back to you like three months, I'll be a different person like,

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, could you imagine if we had to change a new technology at Netflix or we wanted to support something new in our code base, and it was really going to take months to do that like to have those conversations. That's kind of what Bianca is getting to is Do they move move slow on that too? Was that just how the company makes those decisions? Probably,

Bianca Bortolussi
it's usually because there's a lot of process at boxing, yes, not to bash on other companies and how they recruit at all. I think that's why a lot of companies move so late, because there's a ton of process. It's like, you have to go through a committee, and then they have to get the comp approved, and then the VP has to approve it. And then the CEO has to prove it. It's like, absolutely insane. So it can't move quickly. But it is indicative of how other decisions are being made as well.

Ryan Burgess
There was one company I interviewed with. It's a large company in the Bay Area, and they literally had to have the CEO sign off on every single

Bianca Bortolussi
company. That is,

Ryan Burgess
I'll leave them nameless. But it's a large company. And the fact is, like, I could maybe see that when you're a couple 100 people. But when you're 10,000 people, that doesn't really make sense. How would you even have context to sign off on a hire, but it would take forever. And I know the recruiter that I was working with, she was saying like, this is gonna take a while. And she Alicia was upfront and honest and explained the process. But the thing is, it took too long. And so like, I've seen them lose candidates because of that. So that's kind of got to be frustrating, too. I'm sure Bianca you face that too, is like that's frustrating when you're trying to hire someone.

Bianca Bortolussi
It's also frustrating when you're interviewing with US companies, and we're trying to hire you.

Ryan Anklam
Quick, yes, we

Bianca Bortolussi
do have your offer like out the door. Basically, they're like, we're not even sure.

Ryan Burgess
Make up your mind. At the end of each episode, we like to share pics of things that we've found interesting and would like to share with our listeners, let's go around the table and share our picks for today's episode. Ryan, you want to start it off?

Ryan Anklam
Sure. So it's kind of funny, when I made this first pick, I didn't realize that there actually might be listeners of ours that this doesn't apply to at all. And that's the Spotify Time Capsule playlist. And it picks kit songs from your teens, and kind of plays them back. And I just realized that we probably have some listeners that are in their teens, so just be today's music. But if you're not in your teens, that's a really cool way to just kind of live some of your relive some of your moments from high school or college, whatever. And the second one is a presentation on SlideShare that I have come back to every now and then because I always forget about these little things. But it's pretty interesting and helpful. And it's called Dirty hacks from the dark corners of front end. So there's all kinds of interesting little hacks that are in this slideshow. So those are my picks

Ryan Burgess
gem when you have

Jem Young
slow reading these dirty hacks

Ryan Anklam
are really dirty.

Jem Young
My first pick is Firefox focus. So it's a mobile browser. backstory. I hate ads. Like I just I don't like being tracked around the internet. So if I want to look something up, I almost always go in incognito on my mobile browser, because I know that if I look up, say, a couch, I'm gonna be getting couch ads for the next six months. And that's really frustrating. Yeah, everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. It's just a it's a really, really aggravating. So I almost always do all my searches in incognito. So I don't have to get track like that. I don't see ads that are not relevant. Firefox focus does that by default. So it only has one session, you can open multiple tabs, the mini you close it, or you can just clear your session just clears out everything and then you start over. So it's pretty much like permanent incognito, which is really useful when you're just trying to look up directions to something or trying to see like, oh, I want to know how much this lamp cost or things like that. Yeah, it's really, really awesome. Very fast browser. It's it's not full functional, but it's much faster than like chrome or even Firefox mobile. So pretty sweet browser Firefox focus Mozilla killin as usual. My second pick is my headphones, Sony MDR 1,000x. I've been doing a lot of traveling in the past two months. And the noise cancelling on the Sony headphones are amazing. Just, you don't realize how loud the airplane is until you take them off. And then you're like, what's, what was I doing the rest of my life that I just had to listen to this? They're beautiful. They're a little expensive. But if you travel a lot, get some noise cancelling headphones. I recommend the MDR x 1000 which get sponsored by Sony that we can all have that be awesome. Yeah.

Mars Jullian
Done. No, I was dumb on that. I'm a nervous flier and the minute I put in noise cancelling headphones, the sound of the engines going away just like I got a whole lot calmer. Not to mention the alcohol I was drinking. Okay, so my first pick is a little bit of self promotion. My colleague and I are have been confirmed as speakers for the November 17 html5 meetup up in the city. If you're in the Bay Area, I'll be talking about how pool and code we architectures have, you know, something to do with each other. And then the second is actually visualization put together by one of our previous speakers, Shirley Whoo. So Hamilton has a great soundtrack. And she went through and did a very thorough analysis of all the characters and the lines and every song and who they're sung by and who they're sung to. And so she has an interactive visualization of every line in Hamilton and it's really pretty looking and got a lot of information on it. So

Ryan Burgess
yeah, she did a really impressive job.

Mars Jullian
Very detailed and really thorough. It looks pretty as

Bianca Bortolussi
well. So yeah, not that interesting of a person. And I've been trying to think of something really interesting all day, and I didn't know I was supposed to have to,

Ryan Burgess
you don't need to you can have one you can, you can have.

Bianca Bortolussi
Okay, I'm going to talk first, I got the Apple watch three. And I think it's amazing. However, I do wish that I did get the cellular function. Did

Ryan Burgess
you get it? Oh, I'm so on the first wall. Okay, well, it really

Bianca Bortolussi
is a lot better than the first watch. I didn't have the first watch, but my husband has it. And he's pretty jealous. And my accuracy, I think is a lot more accurate when we like compare walks and stuff. So that was three pretty pretty good so far. And I now I got a ticket for talking on my cell phone, which I didn't know was a lot. I didn't know you couldn't have it on speakerphone. Like I think this changed a while ago. The car. Yeah, so bad. In my hand. So bad. So now. I mean, I know you could do this before too. But speaker enhancement on this Apple Watch. Amazing. Now I can't get pulled over. It's great. Okay, second, it's so bad. Oh, that's so good. I love it. And the cops didn't even give me any chance, no chance at all. Like sometimes I can get out of tickets. I've gotten out of all my tickets tell us. You got pulled over like five. She's gotten good. Pretty impressive. Um, okay. Second pick. And if Ryan talks about this, then sorry. We're having JavaScript talks here at the end of the month at Netflix campus. And a UI is the one who's going to be speaking. I won't butcher their their titles, but we're talking about React and sign up plus

Ryan Burgess
or something. We're talking about some react and Redux how we leverage it in our signup flows. So yeah, so

Bianca Bortolussi
October 25. If you're coming from the city, we do have Lyft codes for you. If you're

Ryan Burgess
not able to make it, we are posting the videos online afterwards on the Netflix UAE youtube channel so I can link to that as well. Great. Awesome. I have two picks. One is actually another podcast. It's the women in tech show. Really great podcast. I've only listened to a few episodes, but they have really good interviews with prominent technical leaders, women engineers, it's really really good interviews that I've listened to so far. I haven't got through the whole catalogue yet. But the last couple episodes I've listened to have really enjoyed so definitely worth checking that one out. And then I like this whole like going to speaking events and everything. I'm going to follow suit with Bianca and Mars. I'm actually going to plug a nother conference Kotlin Conference, which is not having to do with JavaScript, but I'm excited to go to a Android specific conference that's coming up in November. So if anyone's there, I will be attending as well. It looks like really good lineup of speakers. Alright, before we end the episode, I want to thank Bianca for joining us. It was a pleasure having you join us on this episode. Where can people get in touch with you?

Bianca Bortolussi
You can find me on LinkedIn Bianca Bora Lucy kind of hard to spell or you can reach out to me directly. My email is B Borley. C at Netflix are gone.

Ryan Burgess
Right on. Thank you all for listening today's episode we'd love to hear about your nightmares of recruiters reaching out or any interviews that you've had nightmares on. Tweet us at Funen hh any last words

Jem Young
Brian sucks.

Ryan Burgess
Cheers